Airbnb rolled out its new AI-powered search this week as part of its fall update, a significant step for a company that has been slow and deliberate about AI. Co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky has said in the past that a chatbot-only interface is not fit for travel discovery . With more AI on the way to the Airbnb app, I caught up with Chesky over Zoom to talk about how the company is approaching it, where interfaces are headed, why consumer AI still isn't working, and what role voice will play. Chesky hasn't changed his mind on chatbots.
He said they aren't good for browsing or shopping because they give you a few options at a time, and you have to take multiple turns before reaching a result. But he doesn't see the current version of Airbnb's search as the final form either: its interface will evolve over time. "I think that I've believed for a long time that a chatbot isn't the right interface for e-commerce. I think what you're seeing today is also not the endgame for e-commerce or for travel or shopping.
I think that there's going to be some interface that is, you know, I don't want to call it a midpoint, but something between a chatbot and what you see in the first version we shipped," he said. Continued Chesky: "You know, a lot of people want some things … to be fast and easy, like ‘Book me a flight, I don't want to look at it. ' With Airbnb, they enjoy looking at the product. Travel studies show that people actually derive more pleasure in planning and anticipating travel than they do traveling. So you don't want to take the inspiration and the browsing and the library experience of dreaming away.
" Chesky sees a second problem with chatbots, which is that they are built for one person. He feels that they aren't a collaborative interface, which matters for a product that people often use with family and friends. Over the next three to six months, the company's task is to explore interfaces that enable "multiplayer" AI, meaning AI that several people, such as a group planning a trip together, can use at once. Airbnb isn't the only one rethinking what an AI interface should look like. As AI tools evolve, new interfaces are also showing up in apps.